{"id":170475,"date":"2026-02-18T23:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/170475\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T23:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:41:13","slug":"house-democrats-demand-classified-briefing-on-el-paso-airspace-closure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/170475\/","title":{"rendered":"House Democrats demand classified briefing on El Paso airspace closure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three House ranking members are requesting a classified briefing on the Federal Aviation Administration\u2019s (FAA) decision<\/a> to temporarily close the airspace over El Paso, Texas, last week.<\/p>\n

In a joint letter<\/a> to several of President Trump\u2019s cabinet officials on Wednesday, Democratic Reps. Rick Larsen (Wash.), Bennie Thompson (Miss.) and Adam Smith (Wash.) said they were \u201cdeeply concerned\u201d by the decision, citing \u201cconflicting reports\u201d from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

The FAA initially announced a 10-day closure of the airspace, beginning early Wednesday morning on flights in and out of the area\u2019s two airports. However, the FAA lifted the restrictions after less than seven hours.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration said that the stoppage was brought on by<\/a> a Mexican cartel drone that breached U.S. airspace. Multiple news reports told a different story, citing anonymous officials who said the FAA\u2019s order was imposed due to Pentagon testing of new laser technology on a party balloon<\/a>, which was initially believed to be a drone.<\/p>\n

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford made the decision to close the airspace without notifying the White House, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or the Pentagon, a White House official told The Hill<\/a> last Thursday.<\/p>\n

The confusion over these differing accounts has spurred calls from members of Congress for a thorough investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite repeated requests, our Committees have received little or no substantive information on your Departments\u2019 actions that led to the events in El Paso,\u201d the representatives wrote in their Wednesday letter. \u201cWe request a joint classified briefing as soon as possible to gain clarity into what led to the closure of airspace in the El Paso area and how your Departments plan to rectify the systemic failures in your [counter-unmanned aircraft system] deployment process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ranking members addressed the leaders of the departments overseen by their respective congressional committees, including Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n

The Democratic lawmakers expressed concerns that the El Paso incident demonstrated a broader lack of coordination between government agencies, like the Pentagon and the FAA.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour Departments are instrumental in protecting U.S. critical infrastructure and assets from the growing threat of malicious UAS operations,\u201d the congressmen wrote. \u201cHowever, these efforts must be appropriately coordinated to ensure the safety of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three House ranking members are requesting a classified briefing on the Federal Aviation Administration\u2019s (FAA) decision to temporarily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[68917,65703,68916,68920,138,140,139,10741,68919,7678,68918,27,11030],"class_list":{"0":"post-170475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-el-paso","8":"tag-adam-smith","9":"tag-airspace","10":"tag-bennie-thompson","11":"tag-cabinet-officials","12":"tag-el-paso","13":"tag-el-paso-headlines","14":"tag-el-paso-news","15":"tag-house","16":"tag-members-of-congress","17":"tag-president-trump","18":"tag-rick-larsen","19":"tag-texas","20":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}